Taylor Schilling
|Years Active = 2007–present}}Taylor Schilling (born July 27, 1984) is an American actress. She portrays Piper Chapman in Orange Is the New Black. Early Life Schilling was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Patricia Miller, an MIT administrator, and Robert J. Schilling, a former prosecutor. She grew up in West Roxbury and Wayland, splitting time between her divorced parents. A fan of the NBC medical drama ER during her youth, she began acting at a young age. She became active in her middle school's theater program when she appeared in a stage production of Fiddler on the Roof. After graduating from Wayland High School in 2002, Schilling attended Fordham University's campus at Lincoln Center, where she continued to take part in stage productions before earning her Bachelor of Arts in 2006. She then entered the graduate program at New York University to continue her acting studies, but left after her second year to start auditioning. While she attempted to break into acting, she supported herself by working as a nanny for a Manhattan-based family. Career Schilling made her feature film debut with a supporting role in the independent film Dark Matter (2007). In 2009, she was selected to star in the NBC medical drama Mercy, playing Nurse Veronica Flanagan Callahan, a tough Iraq War veteran and former military nurse-turned-medical practitioner. Reading for the part via videotape from New York City, she impressed the show's creator and executive producer, Liz Heldens, who then flew her out to Los Angeles to audition for the role. In Heldens' words, "she just blew the doors off the audition". The show ran for one season from September 2009 to May 2010. Schilling won the Emerson College Playwright's Festival Outstanding Performance Award. She portrayed Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged: Part I (2011), and starred in the romantic drama film The Lucky One (2012). She stars as Piper Chapman in the Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black, based on the Piper Kerman memoir of the same name. The show premiered on July 11, 2013, and Schilling was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her role in 2014. Personal Life Regarding her sexuality, Schilling said:'' "I’ve had very serious relationships with lots of people, and I’m a very expansive human. There’s no part of me that can be put under a label. I really don’t fit into a box — that’s too reductive. I’ve had wonderful relationships. I’ve had a lot of love, and I don’t have any qualms about where it comes from." Taylor Schilling on body politics, sexuality and her issue with celebrity (May 25, 2017) '' She's rumoured to have dated actress and musician Carrie Brownstein and is said to currently be in a relationship with musician Holly Miranda. Social Media Taylor Schilling's twitter is @TaySchilling; as of August 2018, she has 664 thousand twitter followers. Her instagram is @tayjschilling; as of August 2018, she has 2.6 million instagram followers. Trivia * Schilling is 173 cm (5'8") tall and weighs 59 kg (130 lbs). * She has an infinity symbol tattoo on the left side of her upper body, which can be seen during the series as well. * To wind down at night most of the time she reads. How to Be a Woman by the feminist Caitlin Moran and Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese are fantastic books in her eyes.Orange Is the New Black Star Taylor Schilling Talks About Her Favorite Scene (September 2, 2013) References Category:Cast